My supervisor has been saying for nearly a month now that we are going to do performance evaluations soon, and it is making me unnecessarily nervous: I KNOW I am doing a good job, I KNOW this is an entry-level job that makes $9/hour and that they are lucky to have me at a time when Target is starting at $16/hour, etc., but it is still making me nervous. The worst part is the self-evaluation form I am supposed to fill out, which, first, feels like it shouldn’t be my job to evaluate myself, and second, feels like interview-question tricks all over again: let’s see, how do I answer the question about my weaknesses in a way that turns them into strengths? JUST TELL ME I’M DOING A FINE JOB AND GIVE ME A RAISE THAT DOES NOT COVER THE INCREASE IN THE COST OF LIVING, AND LET’S GET ON WITH OUR LIVES
An update on the plumbing situation is that we had someone come out, and it is the worst possible news: they are going to have to dig up huge portions of our yard, including navigating an old stone wall, and replace all the pipes. The guy who did the evaluation even DOES excavator/replacement tasks, but said it’s too big/complicated a job for him and he would have to refer us to someone else. I don’t want to talk about how much money this might cost (just the evaluation/mapping was nearly two thousand dollars), or whether we will have to temporarily relocate while it’s happening. I feel almost at peace about it: this is not an optional fix, so I don’t have to wring my hands about what we should do / whether it’s worth it. I can look pointedly at the previous homeowner for escaping without having to do this job, which definitely needed to be done at the time we bought the house; but we sold OUR old house without having to do some upcoming expensive tasks, so it’s just Homeowner Hot Potato, and we just got a particularly large hot potato.
Let’s see, this has been kind of a stressful post so far; let’s talk about books. I had one I gave up on even though I was two-thirds of the way through it, because I kept Not Wanting To Read It, and Not Enjoying It, and it had become a blockage in the book-reading pipes. It was ehT elcnuG, by nevetS yelwoR. It should have been delightful. I could see how it could be delightful. But I found it a tedious slog, and it felt “made up.” Which of course it IS, but I mean I FELT IT as I was reading, I FELT the author making it up.
I read another book where I felt the author making it up and yet I still wanted to keep reading it:
(image from Amazon.com)
Love Walked In, by Marisa de los Santos. It felt like a First Novel; it was uneven; the names begged believability and seemed more like the author chose her favorite names; I don’t tend to like books where the narrator talks to the reader in that chummy way; I could FEEL the author trying to get herself out of plot corners she’d written herself into; there was more than one plot point where I stopped reading, looked up, and said “What. That makes NO SENSE” or “Oh, come on”—and yet I really enjoyed it, and I requested the sequel from the library system (we don’t have it at my library for some reason, even though we have the other three books in the series).
The GIST of the book is that a woman (who is CONSTANTLY described as tiny and beautiful, and her name is very unlikely, and I wanted to dislike her but I did not dislike her, though I did dislike the way she kept talking about how tiny and beautiful she was) is looking for romantic love, but instead finds parental love, and not in the usual way. (Note that you can absolutely tell this book by its cover.) I don’t know, it just felt so refreshing. And I could forgive a lot of the issues as being First Novel issues. So it’s odd I couldn’t do that with the first book I mentioned, where it’s basically the same plot (single person looking for love but instead finds untraditional parenthood) and has a similarly delightful element of accident/fantasy/fate. Well, that’s just how it went: the first one felt to me like a tiresome invented slog with tiresome invented characters, and the second one felt like a delightful read with some issues. You may find you feel exactly the other way around, if you try both.
I also just read ehT elcnuG and disliked it. High five!
You used the word ‘begged’ correctly! It’s so rare these days. So many people say ‘begs the question’ when they mean ‘needs a follow up’ that the word has practically lost its meaning. This made me happier than when my husband uses a semicolon correctly. :D
This makes me feel better about the way we do our evaluations at work. We never tell employees when it’s going to happen. I mean, it’s yearly, so they know it’s every year around the same time, but typically my partner and I will say, ok, let’s do so-and-so-‘s evaluation and then go get them. They never have time to dread it beforehand.
I work for a large corporation and it seems like the entire year something is upcoming. Goals! Midyear! Yearend! So many warnings and each process takes months, but also comes down to the last minute. And then inevitably, things get messed up and people get upset, and we have to go and fix things.
I’m sorry about the expensive plumbing work. My sister is trying to sell her house (having already bought a new one) and just discovered foundation issues through the inspection, which caused a pending sale to fall through (on her birthday no less). Homeownership can be rough.
I hope the review is done soon so you can stop thinking about it.
When I review a book on Goodreads I often mention factors that may have impacted by reading experience (like having put the book aside to read a book club book and then losing the thread) because it’s all so subjective, not just because of what books work for you, but when you read them, etc.
I had basically the exact same reaction to Love Walked In! I enjoyed it despite all its flaws, and even though I almost wanted to dislike it. As I recall, I found the sequel okay but disliked the third book of hers I read, which may or may not relate to the other two; I no longer recall.
I can’t believe they’re making you do a performance evaluation at the library. As someone who does a lot of employee reviews (ugh, worst part of my job), I’d say its your chance to give yourself a pat on the back. I like it when my employees give themselves glowing comments because they’re true and it helps me fill out my side of the review and justify a raise. I don’t always catch allllll the day to day stuff they do that’s wonderful. For the Things to Improve section, add the things that don’t go well (or as efficient as you like, etc) for you and use it as a chance to talk to your supervisor about them (we need a better system for xyz)
Yes. Give yourself glowing reviews Swistle. For one you deserve it, and two You know the guy employees do, everywhere.
A friend gave me ehT elcnuG for my birthday and got a copy for herself, too, so sure was she that we would both like it. I did like it very much. She did not.
I often don’t like the books other people do, so this was a fun birthday bonus for me.
Interesting about ehT elcnuG! I kept reading rave review after rave review for it. Got it from the library and gave up on it after a bit. After some reader friends I really trust commented again on their love for it, I gave it a second try and that time I did like it. Not loved it, but liked it. I think it is one of those books that maybe dovetails with your feelings about loss (or your experiences or whatever) or it doesn’t.
I’m so sorry about the plumbing situation. Sometimes home ownership is the absolute worst.
I always hated having to write a self evaluations during annual review. I know they are meant to give everyone a voice in the process but they are just so awkward to write. I would try not to overthink it too much. In my office the “weakness” question was not meant to be a trick, but as a way to find out if someone was struggling with something and if there was anything I or others could do to help. Hopefully your boss is using that question in the same way. If you don’t think there are any weaknesses in your performance then just say so and then maybe tack on a sentence about a new skill you would like to learn. Annual reviews are always so nerve-racking!
I am just so, so, SO glad that you pushed the plumbing issue, and that you were so firm in your resolve that it be ADDRESSED. Nonetheless, big house projects are awful and you have my full sympathy. Hoping you quickly find someone who can handle the project quickly, and that you never have to think about plumbing again,
I love it when I read books back-to-back that are similar in structure/subject matter/etc. Makes the comparisons much more enjoyable.
I hate, hate, hate annual review time. I have to give my boss upward feedback, I have to do a self-assessment, and we’re supposed to do goals, which really doesn’t work for editorial (unless the goal is to do all the work that is sent to us, but even that is more the job description than a goal). I hope yours goes smoothly and ends up being a “you are doing a great job!” session.
I felt the same way about “Lily and the Octopus”, managed to slog thru it, but definitely not the most enjoyable book. Not inclined to read this one…
I LOVED Love Walked In, but I do remember thinking that The Big Drama was wildly out of character and felt kind of unrealistic. I did really love the writing, though
Give yourself ALL the pats on the back in your self-evaluation. Go back and re-read posts you wrote about things you particularly enjoy about your job, and put those in. Find posts about difficulties you overcame, and put THOSE in. For weaknesses, put stuff you are still feeling uncertain about, like would they train you on something you’d like to learn more about?
They are lucky to have you. You deserve all the raises.
Especially since you have a big plumbing expense.
I quit that same book for the same reasons! The Love Walked In series is my favorite series of all time and I think the second, Belong to Me, is the book I have read the most number of times. I love, love, love her characters.
You’ve inspired me to officially give up the book I’m reading, which I find myself constantly not wanting to read and which is now clogging up my reading pile. I wanted very badly to like it. I assumed I would like it! It has a charming premise. I LOVED the authors previous book. The book and cover are BEAUTIFUL! It has red-edged pages!!! Still. I just do not like it. So, I’m going to ditch it at 45% completed. Maybe I will try it again when I’m in a different frame of mind.
I’m sorry about the plumbing. You’re calmness in the face of it is really admirable. I would be a mess, I think.
Does this book’s title by any chance start with a “G” and end with a “T?”
Also, I recently slogged through a book that I should have given up since I was having to force myself to read a chapter a night, and it’s kind of thrown me into a mini-reading slump. Give up on books that aren’t working for you, it’s better all around!
Sometime in my 40s I finally decided to just stop reading books I wasn’t enjoying. I had so little time between work and family is felt like I didn’t have the time to waste in books I didn’t like. Maybe I’ve missed out on some books that got really good 200 pages in but it’s a risk I’ve been wiling to take.
Laughing ruefully and companionably with much of this. The having to evaluate yourself is STUPID and HIDEOUS (“I think my biggest weakness is that I just care too much about doing a good job”) and would render me speechless and outraged. Homeowner hot potato, yes, yes.
I used to bend over backwards to justify liking a book that was objectively not great or that people I knew didn’t like. I now just say “this and this and this could be seen as problems, but whatever, I still loved it”. It shouldn’t surprise me at this point how different people can read the same book and appear to have read an entirely different book, but it still sometimes does.
I am unfortunately on Nextdoor, and I’ve noticed that one by one the houses in our neighborhood (built in the early 70s) are experiencing failures in the cast iron sewer/water lines which are encased in our slab foundations. This inevitably results in the entire flooring in most of the house having to be torn up and replaced, in addition to the installation of new, non-cast iron pipes. Every time we get a clogged drain I experience dread as I know it’s coming. It’s also keeping me from replacing some flooring that really need to be replaced, as I am CERTAIN that the moment I do it will all need to be torn out.
Anyway, performance reviews for low wage jobs are complete bullshit and a SELF EVALUATION (which ime only makes things easier for the manager) is just really a bridge too far.
Do you mind a suggestion? Get that pipe work done now, so you can get it done along with the floors. Better to do it before it fails.
Part of the reason my mom sold my childhood home was a big plumbing issue exactly like that: dig up the yard/driveway/sidewalk out to the street, tree roots, replacement pipes, etc. She sold it to a flipper and I wonder sometimes what happened.
I felt the same about The Gu…, but it was so highly touted on Goodreads by a librarian friend I follow. I was eventually able to finish it on audiobook at 1.5 speed, which helped a lot. I ended up liking it in a passive sort of way. The second half was more heartfelt and less made-uppy.
In my early career in corporate America I absolutely hated doing self evaluations. It was particularly bad when I was newish – I mean how on earth am I supposed to know how I’m doing at this job? I’ve only just started. I’m not a delicate flower, just tell me how I’m doing and what I need to work on! I can take it! When I switched careers and had an interview with the person who was to become my boss I felt such relief when I asked if we would do evaluations regularly and he responded something like you’ll only hear about it if you’re not doing your job well. For some people I guess that would be a terrible way to proceed, but for me it was perfect.
UGH so sorry about the big plumbing issue/project/expense. A few years ago we had some pipes leaking into our crawl space that we only found out about when our entire house started smelling like sewage. By that point our crawl space had standing water (with . . . stuff in it) and we had to hire a remediation service to clean it up before our plumber would come in and repipe our entire first floor and if I could have just walked away from my house at that point I would have.
This may not be what you want to hear, but as a manager I really love using employee reviews that have an employee component for them to fill out. I find it helps guide the discussion and informs me what the employee thinks of their own skills, and where the employee wants to grow. It’s also been very informative when an employee I thought was doing really well in a particular category gives themselves a low to moderate grade in that same category (or in one awkward situation, when an employee I was getting close to putting on a formal improvement plan gave themselves 10/10 in every single category).
I’m sure there are bad managers that do use it as a trap, but I think it’s best served as an honest reflection of your strengths and weaknesses, and how your job can best utilize your strengths and support you through your weaknesses.
Performance reviews – particularly those that include a self-evaluation and setting goals – are a complete waste of time for certain positions…including mine. If we are going to HAVE to have a review just call me in and say “great job!” or “you could improve here.” otherwise don’t waste my time.
I’m so sorry about the plumbing issues. But I know you will be relieved when it is all back in working order.
Right after I commiserated about your Plumbing Disaster and shared my family’s Curse of Water last week, my hot water tank began spontaneously spewing water in the basement. Like, RIGHT AFTER. It was almost funny, I totally jinxed myself. 2k $ later, the curse continues!
I hate reviews. I got the worst review of my entire career in 2020 and it made me feel like garbage until I asked around and found out our overlords gave almost everyone the same “barely adequate” rating. During a pandemic when we were overworked and understaffed and 1/4 of our department quit. It didn’t motivate me to reach higher than barely adequate last year, that’s for sure.
Wow giving everyone barely adequate ratings in 2020 is something else. I’m just stunned at the idiocy of it.
Of course I have to Google and figure out If the book and author are stylistically written in reverse or if it’s a polite thing you are doing so of the author does Google they will not find the feedback and curse you.
Ha yes it is to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings! over my subjective tastes!
The idea of Swistle working at Target is so perfect, but I get why you don’t. The difference between working for a local entity and working for a big box corporation is huge. I remember when I worked at a big box store, if I needed time off for required college stuff I had to put it in the computer and I might not get it even if I talked to the supervisor. Which is so dumb, because when they didn’t give it to me, I had to call in “sick.” Whereas when I worked at the local library, I could just have a quick chat with the person who did the schedule and she would block me out when necessary. It’s like customer service- a local company might be willing to help you to make a sale and encourage you to come back, but a corporation doesn’t care AT ALL even if they sell you a dryer that arrives so dented it doesn’t work (looking at you, Home Depot).
About six weeks ago, we had an almost identical plumbing issue. Basement toilet backing up whenever any other water in the house was running, turned out to be roots in the pipes, had to dig up the whole front yard and take out a tree and replace the pipes and stay in an AirBnB for several days, the whole shebang.
This is to say that I am sending you love and solidarity and money-multiplying vibes with all my strength. As I said to my mom, fortunately we HAVE the money to pay for it, but who wants to spend it on THIS???
I did finish ehT elcnuG despite not enjoying it. I pushed myself to keep going because, like several have noted here, I kept seeing it included in reviews of books as delightful, one not to miss, etc. I am one who doesn’t finish books if I’m not enjoying them. I gave myself that permission about ten years ago! However, I kept expecting ehT elcnuG to improve based on so many positive reviews and it just never did. Harumph. I will not be reading anything else by this author, that’s for sure.
Oh, I hear you about evaluations. I have been on both sides of the table for many years. When I’m doing one I KNOW I want the reviewee to feel calm and comfortable. There should be no surprises in performance evaluations – any issues should be brought up at the time and the reviewee should already be aware of it. But I always still stress out when it’s my turn!
I definitely always appreciate when the reviewee toots their own horn. I mean, it is possible to overdo this, of course. But I don’t watch my staff 24/7, and I love hearing about the good things they’ve done, the things they’re proud of, and it can be a good opportunity for further discussion. If they’ve shown they can do X well then I might ask them if they want to explore doing X more often.
If you do have an area to write about weaknesses, I suggest you write about areas of growth, instead. I.e. it’s not that you’re doing something badly or wrong. It’s that you’d like to learn more about……. You’d like to take more responsibility with………… You’d love training in……
With job interviews, one of my standby answers to that question is “I can’t start work until I’ve reviewed what I have to do for the day and organised myself properly.” I feel like it’s one of those questions where the point of it is more “show us that you know how to play this game and you’re aware of yourself” instead of “tell us a genuinely really bad thing about yourself”.
I hope your evaluation happens soon and is painless, and I especially hope you get a raise out of it – you deserve it. Especially with the plumbing stuff coming up. Sheeeeeesh. :(
So once in an interview I was doing to hire a summer student I asked a standard, “Have you ever experienced conflict in the workplace or a team setting and how did you resolve it?” and the answer I got was “One summer my boss was pregnant and so she had to go to a lot of medical appointments.” Me: “Um, I see. So how did you… resolve… this?” “Oh she got a cell phone so I could call her with any questions while she wasn’t in the office.” So not only did this fellow think that it was somehow a conflict that his boss was pregnant, his “resolution” was bugging her at her medical appointments with work questions.
The kicker: I WAS VISIBLY 7 MONTHS PREGNANT AT THE TIME!
Oh my gosh. Some people just have NO CLUE. I’m sure he thought it was an amazingly clever solution to be able to pester his boss like that! Pregnant women shouldn’t ever prioritise anything over work!
(disclaimer: I have three kids myself, this is a joke!)
My greatest triumph in a performance review was when I cited as my greatest challenge my difficulty in creating a productive relationship with someone I knew my boss couldn’t stand. Boss went to great lengths to assure me that it was not my fault and to vent at length about what a nightmare this person was.
I love love loved Love Walked In and really liked Belong to Me, and then read Falling Together, hoping it would be another cozy pleasant read, and it was so off-putting. I’ll Be Your Blue Sky was everything I wanted in the end to the trilogy, though, and I also enjoyed I’d Give Anything. Looking forward to your thoughts on her others!
Swistle, as the person in my library responsible for things like “why don’t we have this one book in the series when we have the other three” — we want to know these things. Like, a lot. And there is sometimes no way to know unless someone tells us, because that book got lost or damaged and withdrawn from the system without us knowing, or we just missed it when it came up to be ordered. I can guarantee you with 99.9999% certainty that the person in your library responsible for it wants to know too, and I also have full confidence that you will tell that person in a non-accusatory way. (Even if you were accusatory… I’d still want to know.)
Also, please PLEASE give yourself a glowing review. You deserve it. I am 100% sure of that.